Seriously, I'm beginning to heart RIM's co-CEOs almost as much as I heart Steve Ballmer. Give the mobilemen a venue and a mic, and we get blog gold each and every time. Chronology will help context here:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

This almost the very moment word leaked that RIM was set to release an "Apple Killer" which became the lamentably launched BlackBerry Storm. When reviewers and users alike generally panned the device's initial, buggy software, Jim Balsillie said GlitchWare was the new Black(Berry):

[RIM and Verizon] made the crucial Black Friday deadline "by the skin of their teeth," after missing a planned October debut. Mr. Balsillie said such scrambles -- and the subsequent software glitches that need to be fixed -- are part of the "new reality" of making complex cellphones in large volumes.

Now to put the disrespect cherry high atop of Storm owners frustration sundays, Lazaridis returns with this brain-boggler:

"That's our first touch product, and you know nobody gets it perfect out the door. You know other companies were having problems with their first releases."

The iPhone was Apple's first touch product, and while iPhone 1.0 may have been limited in functionality (and 3.0 may still have boxes yet unchecked), it's hard to take anyone seriously who doesn't think Apple not only nailed their first touch product, but their very first phone product of any kind.

Maybe because 1) Apple wasn't rushing for a Black Friday sales-focused deadline, 2) they weren't trying to clone a competing device's feature set, and 3) they cared about user experience more than 1) or 2)?

Many people still use an original iPhone 2G, some even still run iPhone OS 1.x. Storm owners have only themselves to blame for not waiting to buy Storm 2 instead? Ahem. Pitchforks to the right, torches to the left, north to Waterloo!

That said, if Dancing with the Canadian Stars ever becomes a reality, I would still vote for RIM's co-CEO to take on the Woz role. Let the Laz dance! Ballmer could lend him the Monkey Boy choreography and we just know CrackBerry Kevin would bring out the push-powered voters!

I'm still on the iPhone 2G, running 2.2 firmware and I'm quite happy with it...also I don't need the 3G speeds so there wasn't much point in me upgrading.
I tried a friends Storm and by the time I was done I felt sorry for the dude, it's really not a nice phone...well not against its competition.

Hehe, I read the full thing this morning linked from engadget. Was wondering when TiPb would find it. RIM sounds totally insane. How is typing on a glass screen worse than a plastic one with a lousy/sluggish/mushy click mechanism?

my neighbor was eagerly awaiting the storm. It released, he bought, he sent in for manufacturers defects, he received it back, he cries to me about how this phone is the reason RIM has lost him as a loyal BB customer of 5+ years. He refers to it as a joke and a disappointment. All the while i thought it LOOKED cool at least. He says he's getting an iPhone. Hehehe

I had a BB curve as my first smart phone.. all the while I was so perplexed that I had to do things such as pulling out the battery to reset it, or slow and not true internet, slow unresponsive software, a horrible syncing interface, and installing apps... man, that took forever to figure out.
Then I got an iPhone and I realized that THIS is what a smartphone should be: Fast, responsive to the touch, EASY syncing with my music and photos, and APPS!! My world the APPS!! Easy to install as well!

MobileMe isn't vital to the iPhone experience, and I'd wager that a good portion of iPhone owners do not use MobileMe (at least I don't personally know any that do). Supposedly it works very well now.
The 3G network problems were probably a combo of AT&T under estimating how much data all those iPhone users were going to use. Their network was not ready for that many people. And that was Apple's first 3G phone, they could only rely on the limited testing and probably help from AT&T. The 3G issue was corrected mostly by early fall last year and most issues now are localized where there is just poor coverage from AT&T.
All while the Storm still appears to have the same or similar problems from Novemember here in April.

Did people forget the atrocious call quality and dropping calls of the original iphone...oh and remember when safari habitually crashed the iphone when it came out?
So much for getting it right the first (lol@mms+stuff their FINALLY ADDING)

I agree that its ridiculous to say nobody gets it right the first time out, but clearly the way that updates just a few months down the line made the Storm a much better phone and device indicates that it was a half-baked device which could have been a much better launch later than earlier. Its not like they added functionlity with the leaked os updates, just made things run better

@Albert and softie, software is only half the battle and RIM lost the other half with the Storms hardware as well. Very poor and feels rushed as well.
And MobileMe works perfectly fine. Within the time I owned a BB Bold RIM had numerous email outages while MobileMe has not failed that entire time. But it did have a few issues the first few weeks. But again, that's not the iPhone.

I bought my niece a storm for her 12th b-day and she loves it. I played around with it before making the purchase and I think it’s a decent device, I don’t however think that it’s on the same level as the iphone which is kind of a shame because I like RIM and was rooting for them to make a comeback with the storm.
I LOVE the glass pad, one of the best things about the iphone and much more pleasant to type on than the storm……seriously, having to press down to enter text was a silly idea and kind of unnecessary IMHO.

I quite like the Storm. In my opinion, it's a better touch screen device than 90% of Windows Mobile devices, also the Nokia 5800 is absolutely pathetic! The Storm isn't anywhere near the level of the iPhone, but compared to other competitors it's pretty good. The iPhones keyboard is one of it's biggest selling points!

@bonk
Well, the storm is not the traditional Blackberry. They were definitely trying to make it more mainstream.....less business and more of a toy. She plays games, views videos, listens to her music, checks her e-mail, googles the jonas brothers or whatever she would do on a computer.
She also NEEDS(according to her) to be able to update her livejournal and youtube account on the go.
She gets good grades, is involved in activities(piano lessons)and behaves well...so why not?.

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